This blog began in 2007, focusing on anthrax vaccine, and later expanded to other public health and political issues. The blog links to media reports, medical literature, official documents and other materials.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

USA Today reported that a CDC study found that anthrax spore killing had not been standardized using control spore samples at Dugway. Tests of different spore concentrations and volumes had not been tested against different radiation doses to ascertain the degree of lethality of the process under varying conditions.

It seems remarkable to me that this could actually go on for ten or more years. But putting my doubts aside, there is another issue: what else was irradiated and shipped out with live pathogens?

All the select agents come to mind, including Ebola, Marburg, and anything else that many US labs are creating defenses against, and for which they are developing better and quicker detection methods. This is a considerable collection of bad bugs. So anthrax aside, what else went out "live" and what happened as a result? Presumably gamma killing of the rest was not standardized or tested either, right?

An Anonymous made a comment that Dugway is only approved as a BSL 3, not a BSL 4, which is required for work with Ebola and Marburg, and thus they do not work with those viruses. When meaning to approve the comment I erased it by mistake.

I certainly could have been wrong about which pathogens are present at Dugway, but my recollection is that Dugway did have BSL 4 status. However, I think this is based on a document from the 1980s. It comes from an environmental impact statement for a proposed lab, which is discussed in this book. However, I also find links to army statements that Dugway has only BSL 3 labs. USA Today claims there is a BSL-4 at Dugway. It seems I can't resolve the discrepancy tonight.

My original point stands, which is that if Dugway's gamma irradiation did not inactivate all anthrax spores, the gamma irradiation of other pathogens was likely inadequate as well.

UPDATE September 9, 2015: USAT reported that Congressmembers were concerned:

"that the Pentagon's problems containing live anthrax spores could extend to other lethal toxins that could be used as weapons against troops and civilians, members of Congress and their staff told USA TODAY... The worry is that procedures that did not contain anthrax won't prevent the escape of other toxins the labs study, said a senior Capitol Hill staffer who studies the issue but spoke on condition of anonymity because staff members are not authorized to speak publicly about it. Those toxins include chemical and biological agents the military fears could be turned into a weapon..."

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Dugway is a Biosafety Level 3 facility. It has never cultivated the Ebola or Marsburg viruses, which are Biosafety Level 4 pathogens.Dugway does not have the approved facilities to cultivate or store Marsburg or Ebola. Approval comes from the Army, CDC and the State of Utah.It takes a very special lab for Ebola, Marsburg and other Biosafety Level 4 pathogens. Such a lab would appear very different from a Biosafety Level 3 lab, and be apparent to those who inspect Dugway.

I took a look at Ed Lake's "blog" which is basically Ed Lake talking to himself.

I just have to post how amused I was to see Ed Lake calling Richard Lambert an Anthrax Truther.

So, now we are to believe that Ed has more insight to the Anthrax investigation than the man who actually ran the Anthrax investigation. TOO FUNNY.

And just for my I told you so.I was mocked when I said the FBI was in on it. I was mocked when I said the FBI purposely fumbled the case. And on and on.Now we have the former head of the Anthrax investigation saying the whole investigation "was a sham". And, "They had everything they needed to convict him."So, I told you so!

After swimming with dolphins at Key Largo, they checked me out at the edge of the pool

Visiting a Bhutanese Dzong, the regional seat of both government and religion (and a fort for good measure)

Why am I blogging?

Because life is meant to be lived! The left side of this blog has photos of some peak experiences. And the right side contains information about which I am passionate.

Too many peoples' lives are characterized by lack of authenticity, and fear of acknowledging and expressing their true nature. Employees cannot say what they think at work, and in the corporate system we must squish ourselves into square holes when we are round pegs. We thus lose touch with our souls, becoming cogs in a soulless, profit-driven machine.

The culture of political correctness has meant, in medicine, that we ignore how the foundations of our science are being undermined by commercialism. Clinical data generated or presented by the manufacturers of drugs, vaccines and devices cannot be trusted: there are hundreds of studies proving this. But this fraudulent information continues to be the only data informing the approval and use of vaccines, drugs and devices.

Unless scrupulous ethical conduct is demanded of physicians and biological scientists, our lack of meaningful standards will carry the medical-pharmaceutical system down the path of increasing irrelevance.

Medicine and its tools need to be affordable. The current medical-industrial milieu, characterized by contempt for science, countless ways for insiders to achieve wealth due to failure of good governance, and regulatory agency-to-industry revolving doors, has ushered in stratospheric pricing... further kicking us down that path to irrelevance.

Why is our new health care plan a giveaway to health industries instead of to health consumers? Wha won't it cover all Americans? Why was the "public option" never an option for the Obama administration?

So many of our leaders carry a heavy burden of mendacity and avarice. If they instead got in touch with their own souls (perhaps by exposure to the natural world), or made their decisions by maximizing the amount of good that results, our leaders might find real meaning and value in their lives.

Until that happens, the only way to straighten out the current mess is to demand accountability and impose penalties on unethical/dishonest leaders. Both political parties enjoy bounteous hors d'oeuvres from Pharma's table, making it unlikely the existing political "process" will provide relief--as we've seen in the demoralizing healthcare reform drama.

Until then, I'll continue to "call it as I see it" in this blog -- working and living the way life should be, in rural Maine, far from the centers of power.

Ellen Byrne has created several designs encapsulating aspects of the FBI's ridiculous case against Bruce Ivins. They can be purchased on T-shirts and coffee mugs. All proceeds will be donated to the the Frederick County chapter of the American Red Cross, a favored charity of Dr. Bruce Ivins.